News from the Pool: What is Wet May Not Always Be So

Life at poolside continues on its merry way following an intermission of 18 hours of rain yesterday. The rain has chilled the pool water to a more reasonable temperature, and the storm clouds have broken up most of the excess humidity. It was to the point where my hair had such volume that I was taller. It was so humid my head gained a pound in water. It was so bad that an old lady almost drowned walking by my apartment and had to be resuscitated once carried into air conditioning.

Today I wrote a letter, a good one borrowing some of the drama-queen stylings of Tennessee Williams, from my pool chair. I tucked it away and dove in the deep end, and by the time I was up for air, a gust of wind picked my letter up and dropped it daintily in the water alongside the "5 ft" marker. I laughed, enjoying the silliness of the problems I face, and rushed to retrieve it. Within a few minutes, it was dry, unblurred, and showing only a little crispness for all it had been through. Should we all be so lucky.

I've been rereading Tony Earley's collection of short stories, Here We Are in Paradise. His two greatest, to hear me tell it, are the lyrical powerhouses "Charlotte" and "The Prophet from Jupiter." I know I'm not alone here, but let me just give a shout-out to fictional expressionism: Woo-woo!

Water is my fascination, my spiritual locus. It is my home, a home that runs downhill, that evaporates when the heat turns up. In water, my Tetras circle their little world and think about fish flakes. Or maybe they are attracted to the air and long for wings. Watching the ripples and the sunlight refracting through the depths of blue today, I thought the movement of light on water looks just like the movement of light in fire. Lit from below, the pool burns like a beacon until 10 every night. Is it me that it calls, or is this a call to you?